Game 86, Mariners at Athletics
Jason Vargas vs. Jarrod Parker, 7:10pm
Maybe they need to move the fences in at the O.co Coliseum too. After another lackluster showing from the M’s line-up, the M’s are strongly hinting at imminent changes – Dave Sims tweeted about it today, and Wedge’s post-game press conference last night was clear as well: the M’s are sick of watching the same players fail, and might make some changes just to watch something, anything, different. Obviously, moves made in frustration and anger, and moves made to placate the “just change something up” crowd are seldom the most well-reasoned, judicious moves a GM could make. But in yet another reminder of just how bad this rebuilding job’s gone, there’s just not a whole lot there for a GM to screw up in a fit of pique. Sure, they could DFA Kyle Seager or trade Felix for cash considerations, but that’s not going to happen. They *could* do something like send Smoak back to the minors, DFA Chone Figgins, or bench Ichiro. I’m struggling to find a reason to argue with any such moves. I think everyone’s perfectly content to wait through a rebuild, but the M’s are offering few hints of any construction-related activity.
Today, they’ll face Jarrod Parker, who dominated them on June 27th. Parker uses a four- and two-seam fastball around 91-92, a good change-up and a slider. He generates an above-average number of swinging strikes, which balances out his poor command. His best pitch is the change-up, a well-disguised offering that’s generated misses on 45% of swings so far, a very high total. For comparison, Jason Vargas (also good) change-up gets whiffs on a bit over 30% of swings. When Parker struggles, it’s generally due to bases on balls. He misses the zone quite a bit more than Vargas – including over 41% of his change-ups (Vargas is at 37% this year). The M’s drew 4 walks against Parker in 7 innings, which isn’t bad, but since they are who they are, they also struck out 9 times and scored just one run off of Parker in June.
On the plus side, Vargas gets to face the A’s, who despite having Parker on their club appear to have never seen change-ups before. Vargas matched his career high against the A’s in his last start against them (today will be his *4th* start against the A’s in the first half of 2012). Pitch type linear weights have problems associated with them, and it’s just a half a year, but right now, the A’s have lost 9 more runs against change-ups than the Mariners. The Mariners are better at not as terrible at something related to batting than the A’s! Too bad about literally everything else related to batting.
Today’s line-up features plenty of left-handers against the righty Parker. Despite the change-up, Parker has “traditional” platoon splits, and has been better against righties than lefties. Again, the M’s need to take some pitches and run up his pitch count, so…ahh, screw it. Peguero’s starting, let’s just hit some dingers. Dingers, M’s! Hit some dingers!
1: Ackley (2B)
2: Ichiro (RF)
3: Saunders (CF)
4: Jaso (C)
5: Seager (3B)
6: Wells (LF)
7: Smoak (1B)
8: Peguero (DH)
9: Ryan (SS)
SP: Jason Vargas
Catcher Adam Moore, who was DFAd this week, was picked up on waivers by the Royals.
Forrest Snow starts tonight for Jackson against Rays prospect Kyle Lobstein – Snow’s righted the ship a bit since his demotion, and tonight’s game looks great on paper. The Rainiers are in Salt Lake finishing up a series against the Bees, and Blake Beavan gets his fifth start since he was optioned.
Dominican lefty Wander Marte gets the ball for Pulaski tonight; the 20 year old is coming off an impressive 5 inning performance in which he gave up 1 run, walked no one and K’d 9.
Taijuan Walker’s in sweltering Kansas City for the Futures Game, which takes place tomorrow.
Game 85, Mariners at Athletics
Kevin Millwood vs. Tom Milone, 7:05pm
The M’s escape Safeco Field after a dispiriting homestand that saw them score 2 runs per game and generally look pathetic. Whether it’s meteorological or psychological, the M’s are now free to see other ballparks for a while. Unfortunately, they’ve shacked up with another HR-stifling pitcher’s park and that park’s very solid pitching and defense. As I mentioned the other day,. the A’s have given up fewer runs per game than the M’s, despite not enjoying Safeco’s bizarre 2012 stats. The A’s have somehow assembled a very good defense despite near constant player turnover (I wonder if Brandon Allen remembers that he played for the A’s this year) and a pitching staff that’s extremely inexperienced.
Take Tommy Milone, for example. He was included in the Gio Gonzalez deal, and made his MLB debut last season with the Nationals. The classic soft-tossing lefty has made the transition to starting and to the American league with aplomb. Using a “fastball”, cutter, change-up and curve, he’s managed to keep his HRs allowed within the tolerable range, and his defense has done the rest. Coming up, he had fantastic strikeout rates (and K:BB ratios), but he’s not a strikeout pitcher in the majors – this is probably normal given his velocity. There’ve been a few mid-80s/change-up artists who’ve posted amazing strikeout rates in the minors, only to see them plummet in the bigs – Andy Sonnanstine was pretty good for a while before crashing out. Thanks to his HR-suppressing park and one of the better defenses in the league, he’s run an RA under 4.00. Sure, his FIP’s not that great but I’m talking about him in his specific, Oakland-y context. All of this is annoying in that he’s so similar in basically every way to his old college teammate, Anthony Vasquez. Both used a FB/curve/change; Vasquez used a two-seamer while Milone uses a cutter, and Vasquez’s FB was a tick or two slower than Milone’s, but they’re clearly somewaht similar. The resemblance is even stronger when Milone pitches away from the forgiving environment of Oakland – Milone’s RA away from the Coliseum’s a Vasquez-like 7. Of course, tonight’s game takes place in said forgiving environment, so the M’s may be boned. Go M’s!
Kevin Millwood tries to get through today’s start without his groin acting up again. Even with the option of Noesi, the M’s can get several solid innings from their suddenly excellent bullpen, especially with the all-star break looming.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro (DH)
2: Wells (LF)
3: Saunders (CF)
4: Olivo (C)
5: Seager (3B)
6: Smoak (1B)
7: Peguero (RF)
8: Ackley (2B)
9: Ryan (SS)
SP: Kevin Millwood
So, uh, everyone who thought Peguero might DH a few games before the break….surprise!
Noesi down, Peguero up
The Mariners have optioned Hector Noesi to Tacoma after another disappointing start. Carlos Peguero was called up to take his place on the roster. Before you get too outraged about Peguero, who’s unlikely to be any more helpful than he was last year, there are some points about the timing and circumstances you should keep in mind.
First of all, with the All-Star break coming up next week, pitcher workloads are less of a concern for a little while, so swapping out a pitcher for a bench bat makes perfect sense. A couple appearances pinch-hitting for Ryan or Kawasaki is okay and would at least provide some entertainment, it’s only really a problem if Wedge re-develops an irrational attachment to starting Peguero in left field all the time. Also, keep in mind that the pitching staff was at an insanely high 13 anyway, so this is really just re-balancing the roster to a more normal configuration. And it’s not like anyone else in Tacoma has been looking like a great option, at least of those on the 40-man roster who can be called up easily.
And ultimately, Peguero should only be up for however long it takes Gutierrez to be ready to come back from his concussion. They need to be appropriately cautious, but hopefully that won’t take too much longer.
As far as the future of the rotation after the break, that will depend on how well Millwood and Ramirez recover from their injuries. If they’re okay, you just leave Iwakuma in and that’s five. Otherwise, we might have to see Blake Beavan again.
Game 83, Orioles at Mariners
Felix Hernandez vs. Wei-Yin Chen, 7:10pm
Happy Felix Day!
Wei-Yin Chen is a lefty out of Taiwan whom the Orioles signed out of the Japanese league. He had a remarkable 2009 season for the Chunichi dragons, posting the lowest ERA in decades, but he was released by his club after 2011 meaning that the Orioles didn’t need to navigate the posting process. Some reports after his signing had his fastball in the 92-94 range, but that hasn’t materialized thus far. He’s averaging 91 on both his four- and two-seam fastballs, and also throws a slider and a curve (to left-handed batters) and a change-up (to right-handers). Through three months of the season, Chen’s been an above-average starter, posting 1.2 fWAR and 1.7 rWAR. Chen’s a fly-ball pitcher, so he’ll probably enjoy pitching at Safeco. He gets an above average number of swinging strikes, and it’s his fastball that’s doing the heavy lifting. It’s only 15 starts, but Chen’s getting more whiffs with his four-seam fastball than King Felix.
Today’s line-up marks the return of Mike Saunders from what sounds like a particularly nasty stomach flu. Smoak and Montero are back after yesterday’s night off, so Ackley slides back to second.
1: Ichiro
2: Wells (LF)
3: Seager
4: Montero (DH)
5: Olivo (C)
6: Saunders (CF)
7: Smoak
8: Ackley
9: Ryan
SP: King Felix
Danny Hultzen starts tonight’s game in Tacoma. The July 3rd game’s the biggest of the year for the Rainiers, with a huge fireworks show afterwards. Thus, while we’ve had quite a bit of rain and wind today, there’s essentially no chance the game’s getting rained out. I haven’t seen what direction the wind’s blowing, but tonight could get wacky.
James Paxton’s on the hill right now for Jackson, and he’s been solid through three scoreless innings – striking 1 and, most importantly, not walking anyone.
Pre-Holiday Bullet Points
1: James Paxton’s finally got his knee problem sorted out and returns from the DL to start tonight’s game for the Jackson Generals. He’s been the forgotten prospect in the M’s system, with so much attention focused on Taijuan Walker and Danny Hultzen, and now new guy Victor Sanchez. It’s going to be interesting to see how much of his command problems were the result of his injury, as he said the knee had been painful for a while before it finally forced him to the DL.
2: JY mentioned it, but Mike Zunino’s officially in the M’s organization now after signing a contract and collecting a $4m bonus. The under-slot bonus gets the M’s under the 5% threshold, thus safeguarding next year’s #1 pick. As Mike Snow mentioned in comments (yeah, I’m really working hard here), the M’s could spend up to $514,000 to sign their 8th round pick – and the only pick in the first ten rounds who hasn’t signed – Nick Halamandaris, without exceeding a 5% overage. The M’s had a press conference with Zunino today at 1pm, so you’ll probably get to see plenty of that on the broadcast tonight. Edited to add: Just heard via Greg Johns that Zunino will report to Everett, so northwest fans, rejoice.
3: We expected the M’s to be a good fielding ball club this year, with Brendan Ryan anchoring a solid infield. So far, so good: the M’s have the 5th best defensive efficiency (the percentage of balls in play they convert into outs) in baseball. What I certainly didn’t expect was that 5th in baseball is also 3rd in the AL West. The #1 defense by this measure is the Oakland A’s – the team whose construction does not indicate that defense was much of a consideration. Their opening day 3B was a catcher last year. At one point in the offseason, they had one legitimate outfielder on the 40 man (Ryan Sweeney), so they included him in the Andrew Bailey deal to really start fresh. Josh Reddick, the OF they got in exchange for Sweeney/Bailey, has been brilliant in RF, and the A’s trade for a seemingly washed-up Brandon Inge probably helped solidify the infield. Or at least, solidified it as much as possible given that the A’s were bringing in a new first baseman per week at one point. The A’s pitchers have the 2nd lowest K% in the American League (ahead of only the philosophically whiff-averse Twins) and a walk rate that’s 4th highest, and yet they’re giving up 3.7 runs per game. The Oakland A’s payroll is 2nd lowest in baseball, which actually seems high if you watch them hit. They’re near .500, having won 17 of their past 30 games, and sit 4.5 games ahead of the M’s.
4: The Mariners designated catcher Adam Moore for assignment on Sunday- technically a day before they signed Mike Zunino. The former prospect battled a truly astonishing number of injuries, and is now 28 years old. His arm behind the plate looks quite good this season – he caught Mike Trout trying to steal in April – but his bat hasn’t come around. Given this, he may slip through waivers. It’s been painful to watch Moore’s struggles; he’d had so many expectations placed on his shoulders a few years ago when he was seen as the best hope for a Rob Johnson-free team. The M’s struggles to develop a catching prospect (despite always having a position-specific instructor on the payroll) stretches on. Uh, good luck, Mr. Zunino!
5: Jeff Sullivan’s got a typically interesting post on Felix Hernandez today at Lookout Landing. Sullivan notes a possible slight change in Felix’s release point and more “sink” on his fastballs in the past month and a half, but what jumps out at me is just how amazing Felix’s fastball(s) is (are?). Felix can throw a pitch from 89-95mph and get it to break just about any direction he’d like, at any time. His 2-seamer/sinker has about 8-9″ of armside run (moving in to a right-handed batter), and his cutting fastball’s got a half inch or so of glove-side break.* He also throws a more traditional four-seam fastball with horizontal movement that’s essentially right in the middle of the other two. Check out the gifs Sullivan posted for how different Felix can make his “fastball” look.
I’m not sure I buy the idea that Felix is getting more sink on the fastballs; Safeco’s pitch fx calibration looks like it’s still off by 2-3″, and the majority of his recent starts have been at home (just as six of his first nine came on the road). Instead, he’s throwing a lot more of his cutting fastball than he ever has – further proof that the guy who doesn’t study video is capable of reinventing himself on the fly. This pitch doesn’t look anything like, say, Dan Haren’s, which is much more slider like. Instead, it’s just a four-seam fastball with less arm-side break. Other “fastball-like” cutters include Brandon McCarthy’s and Roy Halladay’s – these seem distinct from the “slider-like” cutters of Haren, Cliff Lee and Jake Peavy (there are plenty in between, of course).
* The various pitch fx sites out there differ in how they classify Felix’s pitches. The 9″ of armside run comes from Brooks Baseball, which has done yeoman’s work in separating Felix’s change-up from his sinker, which tend to get lumped together elsewhere. On the other hand, they’re not showing any “cutters” from Felix this year; they lump what I’m calling his cut fastball in with his four-seamer. They’re separated out at Fangraphs or TexasLeaguers.
6: Speaking of Felix, the King’s Court’s been expanded to four sections today. I’m still stunned by how fast this idea took off, and I’m stunned by its staying power. I thought M’s fans – even Felix fans – might get bored of it in the last weeks of a lost 2011 season, but this seems to be one of the few things that get fans excited. Felix deserves as much adulation as we in Seattle can muster, and if t-shirts and turkey legs help with that, then that’s great. Do any of you always try to sit in the Court? Anyone sick of it?
7: Nick Franklin forced his way up to AAA with a brilliant half-season for Jackson, but, like fellow prospect Danny Hultzen, he’s finding the transition a bit tricky. He struck out in 7 of his first 10 at bats and now has 18 total K’s in 47 at-bats (against just three walks). He’s always had some swing-and-miss in his game, and it’s showing now. That said, his reputation as a hard-working “baseball rat” type certainly seems accurate – he’s taken batting practice hours before the rest of the team, and went back to the cage to take more swings *after* some recent games.
8: Cincinnati Reds prospect Billy Hamilton‘s known for his speed, and the young shortstop made headlines last night by stealing his 100th base of the season last night for Cal League’s Bakersfield Blaze. In just 78 games, Hamilton has attempted 121 steals and been successful 100 times. I’ve thought for years that we’d never see a season like Rickey Henderson’s record-breaking 1982 or Vince Coleman’s rookie year; stolen bases are down considerably since the 1980s, as power’s grown and since more managers are aware that it’s often not a smart play. Apparently I was wrong.
Minor League Wrap (6/25-7/1/12)
BA had Seon Gi Kim on the Prospect Hot Sheet and mention of Poythress, but nothing, NOTHING on Anthony Fernandez opening his double-A tenure with consecutive complete games? BLARG.
At least there were Mariners representatives for Hitter of the Week in the NWL and the MWL. I named the same guys. You’ll figure it out when we get there, I’m not giving out any spoilers. Also Zunino signed for $4 million against a slot of $5.2 million. That means we’re only slightly over budget. Hooray!
To the jump!
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Game 82, Orioles at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Jason Hammel, 7:10pm
Iwakuma makes his first MLB start tonight after injuries and ineffectiveness have pushed aside his competition. As Dave points out, Iwakuma’s been very consistent by xFIP; what’s varied considerably has been his success on balls in play and his HR rate. Now, it’s quite clear that HR rate is much more variable than what’s measured in xFIP (essentially, walks and strikeouts with a league average HR rate), but it’s also not yet clear that league average is the mean we should regress Iwakuma’s HR rate to. In the absence of any alternative that we could support with data, looking at him through the xFIP prism is the sensible option.
And yet…Iwakuma’s shown that he’s got a legitimate MLB-caliber weapon in his split-finger fastball. His two-seam fastball/sinker is also a solid pitch – we don’t have a lot of data, of course, but he’s able to rack up ground balls at an impressive clip. The problem’s his four-seam fastball. He’s thrown it a bit more than 1/3 of the time, but you’d be hard pressed to say why. It doesn’t get grounders and it doesn’t miss bats. Given we know so little about Iwakuma, I’m open to an argument that throwing this pitch makes his other pitches more effective – that he needs a four-seam or rising fastball to maximize the impact of his split-finger pitch. But as it stands, he’s got two decent pitches and what seems like an irrational attachment to a third, minor-league one. Right now, he’s getting Steve Delabar-like results, though again, he simply hasn’t faced enough batters to know if he’s going to be homer prone long term.
Still, while he’s facing the O’s in a park that’s seriously suppressed home runs, the Orioles have hit the 4th most HRs in baseball thanks to a number of high-K, high-HR hitters. Iwakuma’s splitter isn’t as effective against righties, but he’s got a slider that’s a lot more advanced than Delabar’s, so he’s got options.
Jason Hammel came over from Colorado in exchange for Jeremy Guthrie in what’s looking like an incredibly lop-sided trade. Hammel’s swing-and-miss stuff, which was AWOL last year, is back in a big way. He’s running a career high K rate, which then drives a career low FIP. He’s been excellent all year, with the exception of his last start, in which he gave up 8 runs in 3 1/3 innings against the Angels. One big reason for his transformation is the development of a two-seam fastball that he didn’t have in Colorado. His velocity’s up around 1 MPH, but that wouldn’t explain the fact that his *four*-seam fastball’s generating twice as many whiffs as it did last year, despite moving to the league with the DH. The Orioles will take it, I assume.
Smoak and Montero get the day off in light of their recent struggles, and Munenori Kawasaki gets the start because he was in top form last night.
1: Ichiro
2: Wells (CF)
3: Jaso (DH)
4: Seager
5: Olivo (C)
6: Ackley (1B)
7: Figgins (LF)
8: Kawasaki (2B)
9: Ryan
SP: Iwakuma
Today’s the big July 2nd signing deadline for international free agents – meaning the 16 year old Dominican and Venezuelan ball players. Just like the amateur draft, this is the first year that a yearly bonus cap’s been imposed on the July 2nd signings – another product of the recent CBA. The M’s haven’t signed any of Baseball America’s Top 20 international free agents, but we’ll see if that changes over the next few hours/days.
Hisashi Iwakuma’s Arm Strength
Hisashi Iwakuma makes his first start of the season tonight, filling in for the once-again-hurting Kevin Millwood. When Iwakuma pitches well (and that’s more likely than not, given that the game is taking place in Safeco and the Orioles aren’t very good at hitting right-handers), you’re going to hear people talk about how Iwakuma has “built up arm strength” and vastly improved over what he was earlier in the season. You’re going to be fed lines about how Eric Wedge’s usage pattern with Iwakuma has finally helped create a guy who is ready to pitch in the big leagues. You’re going to be told that Iwakuma needed three months of rest to get ready to get big league hitters out.
Don’t buy into any of it. It’s all BS. Here’s Hisashi Iwakuma’s velocity chart, tracking his average fastball speed over the course of the season.
Or, if you prefer numbers, here’s Iwakuma’s average fastball velocity by month:
April: 90.5 MPH
May: 90.8 MPH
June: 90.1 MPH
That’s right, the guy who has been building up his arm strength is actually throwing slightly less hard in June than he did in April. Of course, that’s essentially a function of the fact that he was asked to pitch back-to-back a few times in June, when he had longer layovers between outings in April, but the reality remains is that even well rested Iwakuma isn’t throwing any harder in June than he was in the first month of the season.
As for performance, that’s fairly consistent too.
April: 10% BB%, 20% K%, 50% GB%, 4.11 xFIP
May: 9% BB%, 20% K%, 45% GB%, 3.92 xFIP
June: 14.5% BB%, 16.5% K%, 67% GB%, 4.30 xFIP
Iwakuma has been basically the same pitcher all year long, getting a good amount of groundballs and an acceptable amount of strikeouts while issuing too many walks and giving up too many home runs. Whether the command problems (which were never a problem in Japan) are a result of his marginal stuff not playing that well in the US or inconsistent usage is impossible to know, but the fact is that he’s shown enough movement and velocity to get Major League hitters out when he’s throwing strikes with consistency.
Iwakuma’s probably not a great MLB pitcher. He doesn’t have a devastating out pitch, and his skillset works best when he can pound the zone, which he hasn’t done regularly enough. But he’s probably a decent Major League pitcher, a guy who can get a bunch of grounders and mix his pitches well enough to get strikeouts when needed. And the truth is that Iwakuma’s been that guy from day one.
His results were bad in spring training because of an inflated BABIP, but there was never any reason to relegate him to the mop-up role that he ended up stuck with. Wedge’s refusal to use him was always foolish and a waste of a decent pitcher. That Iwakuma is only now getting a shot at the rotation is the result of poor decision making by the organization, and at this point, the best the team can hope for is that Iwakuma proves that they’ve had a viable #4 or #5 starter hanging out in the bullpen all along. Given the team’s struggles to find quality back-end starters this year, having Iwakuma step forward and grab one of those spots would be a nice boost for the club, and give them another potentially interesting piece to evaluate in the second half.
It’s just too bad that it took until July for it to happen. Don’t let the revisionists try to sell you a load of crap about Iwakuma not being ready for this job in April. The reality is that he’s the same guy now he was then, and his future success is simply going to be more evidence that the Mariners got it wrong coming out of spring training.
Game 81, Red Sox vs. Mariners
Jason Vargas vs. Felix Doubront, 1:10pm
Despite scoring all of 4 runs through the first 3 games of the series, the M’s go for a 3-1 series win today at Safeco. Jason Vargas starts for the M’s, trying to build on his solid start against the A’s last week. He’s opposed by Felix Doubront, another homer-prone left-hander. Doubront and Vargas both post about 40% ground ball rates, and both have roughly equivalent rest-of-season FIP projections (around 4.4), but whereas Vargas uses his change-up and mid/high 80s cutter to keep batters off-b= alance, Doubront uses a 93mph fastball to get ahead of hitters, and also uses a curve and change-up. His best pitch may be the change-up, but he typically throws it to righties – using his curve against lefties. All in all, he’s got good stuff (as evidenced by his 23% K rate and low walk rate), but his HRs allowed push his wOBA against over league average.
The M’s Line-up today features plenty of right-handers, though it’s still a bit odd, given the injuries/illness to Saunders and Gutierrez.
1: Ichiro
2: Wells (CF)
3: Seager
4: Montero (C)
5: Olivo (DH)
6: Smoak
7: Ackley
8: Figgins
9: Ryan
SP: Jason Vargas
According to Keith Law, Mike Zunino’s on his way to Seattle today to officially sign with the M’s. It’ll be interesting to see where they send him – AA’s a possibility, or they could go with High Desert given the Mavs manager Pedro Grifol’s an ex-catcher and player development exec. Clinton’s not out of the realm of possibility, either.
The All-Star game rosters are out, so expect a lot of over-heated rhetoric about who did/didn’t get to play in the exhibition game. As expected, Felix Hernandez will be the M’s sole representative for the AL as they take on Bryan LaHair and the slugging senior circuiters.* While the M’s didn’t get a lot of love from the voters or manager Ron Washington, they have the undying support of Lucas Luetge.
*The Sporting News misspelled LaHair’s name in that piece. How can you mess up the name of the breakout player of April 2012? For those of you counting at home, I think I’ve got 5 ex-Mariners on the rosters: Asdrubal Cabrera, Adrian Beltre, Adam Jones, RA Dickey and LaHair. Any others?